Egyptian security and rescue officials inspect the scene of an explosion at a police headquarters which collapsed one side and pancaked floors.
A suicide bomber, driving a car packed with explosives, who rammed through the barricades around the police station in Mansoura and then detonated the car.
The 1:10 a.m. blast struck at the security headquarters in the city of Mansoura, 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Cairo in the Nile Delta province of Daqahliya, collapsing an entire section and side wall of the five-floor building, incinerating dozens of cars outside and damaging several nearby buildings.
The state news agency MENA said 12 people were killed, including eight police officers, and that 134 were wounded, among them the city’s security chief and his assistant. Most of the victims were policemen, many of whom were buried beneath the debris.
“Mostafa Hadi, a policeman who survived the attack, said the blast sent him flying through the air moments after he had left the safety of his armoured lorry outside the headquarters.
“I heard a massive explosion behind me, I flew through glass and wreckage and then lost consciousness,” he said from his stretcher, his head swathed in a bandages” (source: Brotherhood blamed for deadly attack on Police headquarters building http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/brotherhood-blamed-for-deadly-attack-on-egypt-police-headquarters).
The attack was the second on the headquarters since July, according to reports (source: Egyptian Officials point at Islamist group after blast destroys building http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/world/middleeast/egypt-car-bomb.html?_r=0).